SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Final Travers preparations for Jim Dandy winner Macho Again didn't exactly go as planned Friday morning.
Expected to breeze an easy half-mile over the Oklahoma training track, Macho Again's work was canceled when the horse developed gas following his Lasix shot. Trainer Dallas Stewart walked the horse for an hour in the shed row, and, after being examined by Dr. James Hunt, Macho Again was given clearance to train.
OCEANPORT, N.J. - Beau Dare, the reigning queen of the filly and mare turf sprinters at Monmouth Park, is the one to beat Sunday in the $60,000 Incredible Revenge Stakes.
A 5-year-old trained by Bruce Levine, Beau Dare goes for the natural hat trick: three consecutive stakes wins here at 5 1/2 furlongs on the grass. She won the Candy Eclair in June and the Klassy Briefcase last month.
Stewart Elliott, aboard for the last two, has the return call.
The Grade 2 Meadowlands Cup has had its purse reduced from $500,000 to $350,000 and the Grade 3 Pegasus from $250,000 to $200,000 for the meet at the Meadowlands Racetrack that starts Sept. 30.
The Meadowlands Cup took a double hit. It lost $100,000 due to reductions in the Breeders' Cup Stakes program. The Cup and the Pegasus each lost $50,000 in stakes money that was reallocated to Monmouth's Salvator Mile.
The Salvator purse was doubled this year to $300,000 as it became a Breeders' Cup Challenge Win and You're In stakes for the Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile.
DEL MAR, Calif. - The timing of the $1 million Pacific Classic at Del Mar on Aug. 24 works perfectly for the East Coast invader Delosvientos and his owner-trainer Guiseppe Iadisernia.
Delosvientos has not started since winning the Grade 2 Brooklyn Handicap at Belmont Park on Friday, June 6. The day of the week of the race was important. Iadisernia is a devout Seventh-day Adventist who said he does not work, or start horses, on Saturdays. The Pacific Classic's appearance on a Sunday satisfies his religious, and racing, needs.
Oaklawn Park's productive series for 3-year-olds, led by the Grade 2, $1 million Arkansas Derby, will highlight a 31-race stakes schedule worth $4.6 million during the 2009 meet that opens Jan. 16.
The 54-date season runs through April 11, the date of the Arkansas Derby. Past winners of the race include eventual champions Smarty Jones, Afleet Alex, and Curlin.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia - There isn't much doubt that El Sinaloense will be heavily favored to win the New Westminster Stakes for 2-year-olds at Hastings next Sunday. After all, El Sinaloense has easily won both stakes for 2-year-olds at the meet, and in his win over Almost Time in the Ladnesian Stakes he posted the best Beyer Speed Figure ever recorded by a juvenile at Hastings.
SHAKOPEE, Minn. Horse of the meet honors could very well be decided Sunday in the Minnesota Distaff Sprint, one of seven $50,000 Thoroughbred stakes for Minnesota-breds on Minnesota Festival of Champions Day at Canterbury Park.
The Minnesota Distaff Sprint, a six-furlong contest for fillies and mares, will feature a showdown between A. J. Bakes and Bella Notte.
Meadow Vespers, third after a troubled start as the favorite in the recent Wolverine Stakes, will carry high weight of 120 pounds when he looks for redemption in the $50,000 Michigan Breeders Cup Handicap at Pinnacle Race Course. The 1 1/16-mile race attracted seven statebred colts and geldings, and it is the seventh of eight races on a card that begins at 4 p.m.
EDMONTON, Alberta The 47th running of the Westerner, a $50,000 handicap that traditionally attracts the top older horses on this circuit as well as some shippers, drew a field of only four.
Racing secretary Fred Hilts slotted the 1 1/16-mile feature as the fourth race at Northlands Park on Sunday, with Test Boy, winner of the Don Fleming last out, the 121-pound highweight under Rico Walcott. Last year, Sovereign Award winner True Metropolitan won the Westerner.